Microsoft admits to OneCare flaws

Microsoft has admitted that there is still work to be done on its Windows Live OneCare security software.

Separate disclosures by a European product manager and a member of the Microsoft Security Research and Response team revealed that the company is not satisfied with the performance of the anti-malware application.

According to media reports, Arno Edelmann, European business security product manager at Microsoft, told reporters at the CeBIT conference that "bits and pieces are missing" from OneCare.

Addressing recent reports of OneCare deleting Outlook Express email, Edelmann said that the incident was due to incompatibilities between antivirus components of OneCare and Outlook's 'mailserver' component.

Microsoft Security Research and Response team member Jimmy Kuo admitted on the company's Anti-Malware Engineering Team blog that recent test results have been "less than stellar " and that OneCare is not yet up to competing products.

A pair of high-profile tests in the past two months have yielded grim results for Microsoft.

Independent testing firm Virus Bulletin revealed in February that OneCare was one of four anti-malware suites to fail its AV Bulletin threat detection tests.

AV Comparatives added insult to injury earlier this month, delivering a 'fail' grade to OneCare in a test of 500,000 malware samples.

Kuo said that the poor test results were primarily due to the company's focus on detecting the most dangerous in-the-wild threats, and not on scoring well in tests. Kuo did admit, however, that OneCare needs to improve its scores.

"Even if a company network is running smoothly, the boss will see these test results and bug the administrators about them. So it is also about making sure our customers 'feel' better protected when using our products," said Kuo.

"You will see our results gradually and steadily increase until they are on par with the other majors in this area."